Thursday, May 29, 2008

Vladimir Posner was in Bishkek and I was able to attend two of his events using my alumni network at AUCA. He was invited by the president of AUCA (to the left of VP in the picture. Photo courtesy of murzakimov) as a guest lecturer.

I was interested in listening to a person who was born in France, grew up in the U.S., worked for the propaganda machine of the Soviet Union, and had lost faith in the Communist Part. He admires the U.S., loves Europe, and, it seems, still has hopes for Russia. This is a synopsis of what he said (not verbatim):

The Soviet Union was an artificial formation and was doomed for failure.

Yeltsin is a more pleasant person than Putin, although the latter has his own merits.

Yeltsin did not appoint Putin in 1999. He was removed by the oligarchs, who then thought that Putin would a weak politician and could be manipulated. They were a bit wrong.

Putin did tighten the screws in Russia. All the major media is controlled by the government, directly or indirectly.

Putin did a major thing: he resigned although he had the tools (Duma, referendum, public approval) to stay for the third term.

There will be some liberalization in Russia under Medvedev, who will stay for 2 full terms.

Medvedev is different from Putin, not completely, but in some ways.

When launching his program Vremena (Times) seven years ago he was politely asked not let 3 people on air for political reasons.

There was big disagreement with Dariga Nazarbaeva over one issue and told her that he will never come to Kazakhstan.